Examining the works of Athanasius Kircher and Nicolaus Steno allows similarities and differences to be drawn between their theories of Earth. This is aided by paying particular attention to the role of the French atomist Pierre Gassendi. With his friend Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, Gassendi had a significant impact on Kircher's career and his thinking, and his work was read and noted by Steno in his student years in Copenhagen. Later, in the 1667 treatise Canis , Steno also appraised Gassendi's ideas on the origin of stones. Kircher's experiences of volcanism and earthquakes, gained during his expedition into southern Italy in 1637–1638, led him to formulate his theory of Earth in the early 1640s, when his Magnes was to be published. Completion of his theorizing about Earth was delayed, however, until publication of Mundus subterraneus (1665), in which he developed his concept of the “geocosm.” Steno probably met Kircher in 1666, and they are known to have corresponded on theological topics. In his Prodromus (1669), Steno criticized Kircher's idea of the “organic” growth of mountains. Steno adopted Descartes' idea of “collapse tectonics” and the formation of strata. Kircher's influence on Steno should not be neglected, however, given Steno's substantial excerpts from Kircher's Magnes in his manuscript. In fact, although Steno rejected the idea of a plastic force in his Prodromus , he may well have used Kircher's idea on magnetism to explain the growth of mineral crystals. Thus, given the usual wide acceptance of Cartesian influence on Steno, the historiography of geosciences may be appropriately and usefully revised by considering the role of the works of such figures as Gassendi and Kircher.

Symbolism, allegory, and metaphor pervade Athanasius Kircher’s (1602–1680) Mundus Subterraneus ( The Subterranean World ). Elements from the communicative theory of semiotics are useful for exploring Mundus Subterraneus and for illuminating the modern reactions to his works. Kircher used Hermetic and Neoplatonic philos ophies as a bridge between medieval thought systems and the growing empirical movement of the Scientific Revolution. In Kircher’s studies, no event was taken in isolation, and his examination of Earth rested with Plato’s philosophy that the world was created by God as a manifestation of his own perfection. From a modern semiotic viewpoint, Kircher used indexical and iconic signs to combine rational and empirical techniques that sustained his holistic view of the cosmos. In the modern ideal formulation of scientific observation and inquiry, indexical signs are acceptable authoritative causal links between observation and interpretation. For Kircher, both indexical and iconic signs were legitimate articles to collect and employ because they were all manifestations of the Divine Mind. Iconic signs could be religious images or conceptual ideas that Kircher projects onto the workings of Earth.

In 2006, we celebrated the 350th anniversary of the beginning of an extraordinary career. On 27 November 1656, Niels Stensen, also known as Steno, commenced his studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. All through his scientific life, Steno was fortunate to be able to name many famous scholars amongst his acquaintances, including experts in, for example, chemistry, mathematics, pharmacy, medicine, and biology. He was also supported financially by patrons with a keen interest in natural history. Many of these people were also associated with collections or museums of reputation. Some had inherited collections or museums, e.g., Jan Swammerdam and Manfredo Settala, and others had established these themselves, e.g., Athanasius Kircher. Steno eventually became a collector and curator for the Grand Duke of Tuscany. This work is documented in a catalogue, Indice di Cose Naturali , listing amongst other naturalia samples of minerals and fossils in the Grand Duke’s collection, some collected by Steno himself. Examples are hematite crystals from Elba, collected before De Solido reveals the principles of “Steno’s law” in 1669, and fossil fish from the copper shale in Eisleben, collected later. The importance of the Indice (the Index ) is that the samples listed were partly collected by Steno as documentation for his own research and inspection of economically important geological localities. In posterity, the late Dr. Gustav Scherz was able to reconstruct Steno’s travels using the information of these samples. There is only scattered information on Steno’s interest and experience with collections or museums in his publications and letters. The aim of this paper is to throw light upon this relatively unknown part of his life from the very beginning of his career. This study demonstrates that Steno encountered many of the most important collections and museums in Europe during the period of his life, which was dedicated to science. Steno was a marvelous analytical observer with a unique scientific approach. It therefore seems obvious that this encyclopedic multitude of impressions and information from the caretakers and other sources must have been of significance, not only for his own museological work, but also for his outstanding ability to contribute to new discoveries in anatomy as well as in geology.

The interest of the Danish scientist Niels Stensen (1638–1686) in geology begins with his manuscript Chaos of 1659. It shows how he is influenced by Pierre Borel (ca. 1620–1689), René Descartes (1596–1650), Athanasius Kircher (1601–1680), Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655), and others. His main contribution to geology is his pioneering work from 1669 De Solido intra Solidum Naturaliter Contento Dissertationis Prodromus. The Deluge described by Holy Scripture plays an important role in Stensen’s theory and his reconstruction of Earth history. Stensen had become a Catholic in 1667. However, his acceptance of what scripture says about the Deluge is sincere. He had no means of checking time scales nor would deviation from Holy Scripture be dangerous for him, since a Jesuit, Martino Martini (1614–1661), in 1658 had published a history of China that did not fit well with the time scale in Holy Scripture. The present paper mentions other scientists’ sincere adherence to diluvial theories, like Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716), whereas Carl von Linné (Linnaeus, 1707–1778) was more reserved. After 1840, diluvianism was finally dropped because of Agassiz’ (1807–1873) discovery of glaciations.

Nicholas Steno (1638–1686) always started from his own observations, either in anatomy and geology or regarding theological truths. This was in line with Galileo Galilei’s principle that when investigating physical questions, one should not begin with biblical texts. Thus, Steno had an advantage over other theologians like Vincent de Contenson (1641–1674) who adopted old-fashioned scientific theories from classical antiquity. Though Steno’s conception, in contrast to Athanasius Kircher (1601–1680), emphasized the accidental nature of Earth’s history, it still left a place for the Creator. When observing the geological structure of Earth, Steno concluded that shifts of Earth’s surface were part of nature’s corruption by the original sin of mankind, referring to biblical Adam and Eve, Genesis 3:1–24. Therefore, Steno, who was the first to present a history of Earth before the Deluge, viewed subterranean veins as places not created by God at the beginning of time, but instead within a geological process having begun with the malediction of Earth; in other words, nature was disturbed by original sin. For him, God’s original purpose for Earth’s properties remained hidden and unknown to men, because most of them at first glance seemed to be useless for life on Earth. Both before and after Steno’s conversion, his standpoint remained fundamentally the same and supported his own geological insights.

Abstract The Theories of the Earth formulated by the English scholars Thomas Burnet, William Whiston and John Woodward at the end of the seventeenth century circulated widely within the continent of Europe during the first decades of the eighteenth century. These theories established a sequence of physical conditions of the Earth according to the chronology outlined in the Book of Genesis, emphasizing two main stages: the Creation and the Deluge. Although the authority of the Biblical account of the age and early history of the Earth was normally accepted at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the continental reception of English Theories of the Earth varied. This was due to the complexity of the European context which since the 1660s had produced the theories of René Descartes, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Athanasius Kircher, as well as Nicolaus Steno’s dynamic view on the development of the Earth’s surface. Steno emphasized the importance of the interpretation of rock strata in the field for reconstruction of the Earth’s history. He also carefully avoided contradicting the Biblical account and associated the Deluge with one of the geological stages identified in his history. Nevertheless, the Stenonian heritage stimulated some Italian scientists – such as Antonio Vallisneri, Luigi Ferdinando Marsili, and later Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti and Giovanni Arduino – to presuppose, within the results of their researches, an indefinitely great antiquity of the Earth. Theoretical models linked to Biblical chronology included those of Emanuel Swedenborg in Sweden and Johann Jakob Scheuchzer in Switzerland, while in France, Benok De Maillet proposed a Theory of the Earth which was censured by the Church because of its possible implications regarding the eternity of matter. Among European scholars of the first decades of the eighteenth century, the Stenonian heritage (notably the necessity of fieldwork in a regional context) and the global Theories of the Earth were equally influential.

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the role played by Italian naturalist, Filippo Buonanni (1638–1723), in the reorganization of the Kircher Museum. Specifically, it considers Buonanni’s unique philosophy of nature, which can be gleaned from his public debates about spontaneous generation and fossil formation. This paper argues that Buonanni rejected a conformity of causes in nature, which in turn informed his approach to natural history. His unique approach helped to transform Kircher’s collection from a cabinet of wonders to one of the earliest examples of the modern museum.